Hatchet 2: The Care Bears Movie

Hatchet 2

I’m sure that there’s a core group of people out there who saw the original but don’t think this movie lives up to the comparison. I’m not one of those people. And I’m sure that none of them will read this. Let’s face it, we aren’t exactly talking about Zapped Again! here.

After a short period of sliding-in some inexcusably auspicious nudity, this movie starts off with a man being strangled with his own intestines.  And then his head pops off.  I mean, I don’t have the statistics right in front of me, but I think the instances of that happening – ever – are pretty damn low.  Which makes it AWESOME. 

Sadly, the movie settled into a lull at around the 10 minute mark.  That’s when I put on:

The Care Bears Movie (available here for your viewing pleasure)

First of all, you may be wondering about the shift in films.  Well, as you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m a child of the 80’s.  So I’m intrigued by the nuances of that culture because I lived it, but especially now that I notice how weird some of it is.  Mostly, I just thought it was a strange juxtaposition of two-great-tastes-that-might-go-great-together.

Kind of a, "Hey, you got your schlocky-horror-movie-that's-doing-it's-best-to-imitate-the-slasher-films-of-the-80's in my disgustingly-saccharine-cartoon-created-more-to-sell-toys-than-to-entertain" kind of thing.

So anyway, the film begins with a bunch of children in a group home.  (By the way, why did so many 80's-early 90's movies and tv shows take place with kids who either didn’t have parents at all or were in the care of someone outside of their parents (Punky Brewster, Diff'rent Strokes, Annie, Muppet Babies)? Strange.)

That set-up is particularly funny because the film stars a group of plush bears who are responsible for getting people to feel things. Emotional things. It's like some child psychologist was day-dreaming up a way that they wouldn’t have to actually do their job. That’s my theory, anyway. 

The plot revolves around two kids whose parents left them for a life as meth addicts.  The kids are accidently transported to Care-a-lot (yep,an allusion to Arthurian Legend – helluva way to give your toon-i-mercial some street cred). Oh, and it also has a talking book villain that tries to trick a third kid into making friends through black magic. There’s a neat little scene where he reads something from the book and then figures whatever happens afterwards to be caused by his reading. Ah, the strangeness of causality in a child’s mind.

The book talks about how the black magic kid doesn't need to be nice in order to make friends. Instead, he just needs a little bit of magic (I don't get it either). There seems to be more than a few subtle messages there that one might also attribute to the people who said kids shouldn’t read the Harry Potter books because they promoted witchcraft.

So I go back to:

Hatchet 2

Why do all horror films end up explaining the origins of their monster? Can’t we just leave things in the dark for once? Is it really necessary to give a lengthy backstory to a part of the film that simply exists to kill things in the most gruesome and entertaining way possible? Do we really need pathos for that?

After spending another 15 minutes reliving the origin story of a monster I’d never seen before and still don't care about, we find out that the girl who just moments-earlier escaped said monster, wants to go back into the swamp to hunt him down. Makes perfect sense to me. So, she gets together with Reverend Zombie (played by the Candyman) to assemble a team of people to be horribly dismembered, er, hunt the monster down with her.

There’s a definite tongue-in-cheek cliché going on here.  Somewhere along the way, horror films got the idea that plain, old sex & gore didn’t really work anymore. That’s when they got all meta- on us and went with the whole cheese-on-purpose, thing. It could be funny, if the movies that were doing it now weren’t so damn tame with it. Yes, it’s amusing when a guy who’s being recruited to hunt the monster wants more free cookies at the meeting. It’s not as funny as when Ash straps a chainsaw to his hand-stump, though.

By nightfall in the swamp, there’s a group of people with guns hunting for their feelings.  The Care Bears troll through the vegetation, wielding rifles while we wait for the least developed characters (i.e. all of them) to be disemboweled or impaled on a sharp object. Finally, after an hour or so, their feelings show up and bash a Care Bear’s face into a bloody mess with the business end of a hatchet (see, it's clever because the movie's called "Hatchet 2").  Another Care Bear and his buddy Bear soon get chainsawed in half from the crotch upward. 

Okay, things are getting a little confused. So, I switched over to:

The Care Bears Movie

Now that the black magic kid and his minions are hunting down the Care Bears and the little orphan kids, a wonderful song about having friends to help you out plays over a montage of chase scenes. Truly motivational. Especially since the friends that are helping them are the imaginary Care Bears.  So, if I'm putting this together correctly, the true battle is between black magic kid's lack of caring and some imaginary friends?

Luckily, they win by performing the “Care Bear Stare” on the black magic kid. They basically just look at the kid and care while they do it. So ultimately, caring solved their problems.  Just like in the real world.

But not before one of the Care Bears gets chopped in half and then yanked out of his skin by his exposed stump of a spine. 

Alright, maybe it all got a little muddy at the end there…

Tron (1982), or Jesus Rides a Light-Cycle

The other day I got to thinking about this new Tron: Legacy movie and realized I hadn't seen the original in years.  So, since the film is out of print on DVD and runs around $50 on eBay, I dusted off an old VHS copy and got cracking.  What I found was a film that relies almost as heavily on Christian mythology as those Narnia movies.

To refresh your memory, the plot revolves around three "users" who write computer programs for a large corporation call Encom. Jeff Bridges is a cocky 80's video game programmer who gets digitized into the computer world while attempting to hack into the system to get info on some intellectual property.

I hope I don't make this face when I play video games

In this world, computer programs personify inside the "game grid" and look exactly like the user who created them. The big cheese in this game grid is Sark.

You know I'm evil because my suit is red

He's the main bad dude and answers directly to the Master Control Program.  The MCP is a big floating head (coincidence?) that's an amalgamation of many programs from many users.

Also red

He's a little like Microsoft Windows - taking smaller programs and "de-rezzing" them in order to incorporate them into its power structure.

Now, if that sounds like some of the most convoluted gibberish you've heard since trying to decipher the the plot of The Killing of Satan, well, you're not alone. Don't worry though, the plot is only there to confuse you enough to ignore what the creators must have known would be a horribly dated film within 18 months of its release. That, and to get the glowing characters from place to place, doing things, running from glowing things that pew-pew at them, and generally journeying through a world that the filmmakers have made no attempt to infuse with anything but visual panache.

Seriously, this is the closest thing we get to a "culture" in this world

All that is relatively normal for the 80's though.  What sets this film apart is its depiction of Jeff Bridges as a Christ-like character.

If this image doesn't sell the idea, I'm not sure what will

Sure (you may say) there's really only a couple of things that make this connection.  One might also make the argument that what we really have in this film is simply the "Hero Archetype" and not necessarily a connection to Jesus.  I get it.

But hear me out.  First of all, within the game world, "users" are essentially Gods.  Sark (whose pajamas even have devil horns) goes so far as to persecute the believers if they refuse to denounce their faith in the users.  Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a user who is made into a program (God becomes man?) and performs "miracles" with his user power inside the game grid.  Later, the obscure actress-lady program essentially "dies" and Flynn "brings her back" (Lazarus?).  And finally, he sacrifices himself by jumping into the MCP so that the system can be free from its evil.

And seriously, doesn't it just make sense that Jesus would ride a Light-Cycle?

Psychomania (1971)

I haven't actually been watching this movie for the first ten minutes.  There's a certain point in the timeline of watching movies like this that you realize the first twenty minutes or so are pretty much just hanging on the front like a skin tag.  Nothing useful there.  And if you look it too closely, it'll hang with you when you try to look at the rest.  And then when you look away too.

Well, this film might be doing some ridiculous thing where it's trying to make sense and establish the undead biker gang, a magic mirror, a toad, and impetulent teens as a logical story, but I wouldn't think so.  I tuned back in mentally when some guy was looking through the mirror on the wall and seeing a frog.  And then watching as that frog morphs into...Alright, confession time.  We've known each other for a little bit now.  I feel like I can be honest with you.  To be truthful, I just re-wound (there's a word you don't see much anymore!  urwelcome) to re-assess and realized that I still don't know what the heck is happening in this film.  I mean, the frog turned into a kid running through a cemetery then into an infant and the dude watching just starts to go nuts.  Am I missing out on some social references here?  Is there some cypher I haven't yet cracked to put me in touch with this film?

And then we snap back to the undead biker gang.  Connection?  No thank you, say the filmmakers.  We'll stick with our avante-garde.  What's the viewer get out of it?  Kids on bikes being invincible and tearing shit up.  Again...urwelcome.

The basic message here?  If you believe you'll come back to life after killing yourself, you will.  Maybe not the most responsible thing to pass on to an impressionable emo-generation.  But whatever.  All in the name of entertainment.  Besides, it's British.  70's British.  What else can you say?

Just keep teenage bikers from actually wanting to actually die and everything will be okay.

Wait.  That's actually decent advice that makes some sense.

How did that happen?